<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>peas in a time-traveling soul pod by alliariondak (Sprytemark)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021788">peas in a time-traveling soul pod</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprytemark/pseuds/alliariondak'>alliariondak (Sprytemark)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(struggling not to use homestuck words on a normal post here), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Soulmates, also v minor suicidal thoughts (canon-typical), an homage (ish?) thing to the family you choose, canon compliant except the soulmates part and vanitas is alive and fine, minor emetophobia tw, soulmates but not the romantic kind the you complete me kind, which made me CRY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:20:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,584</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprytemark/pseuds/alliariondak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmates are not something Vanitas thought he would have.</p><p>He’s not sure why, many people do, but the idea of him having… any kind of positive bond with anyone just didn’t seem in the realm of possibility. And yet there they were, two little marks between the pressure-red lines from his gloves on his wrist.</p><p>(soulmates with extra searching through your soulmates' memories!)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sora &amp; Vanitas &amp; Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Sora/Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Vanitas</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a Direct homage slash reference slash love letter slash… fic rec of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20383669/chapters/48345097">The Family You Choose</a> by TunaFishChris! It's really good! And you should read it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Soulmates are not something Vanitas thought he would <em> have. </em></p><p>He’s not sure why, many people do, but the idea of him having… any kind of positive bond with <em> anyone </em> just didn’t seem in the realm of possibility. And yet there they were, two little marks between the pressure-red lines from his gloves on his wrist. A tiny three-pronged crown, and a little flower-looking star thing. Vanitas squints at them, and rubs them just to make sure they don’t smear, like a trick had been played on him or something. They don’t.</p><p>...Well, a fat lot of good they did, anyway. They aren’t <em> here </em>, and he isn’t sure what they’re good for besides being empty titles that were supposed to mean something (thank you, janky memories -- about a week of being alive hadn’t done anything to fix those). So they weren’t worth that much consideration.</p><p>Vanitas slips his glove back on and forgets about them.</p><p>---</p><p>He’s picking himself out of a heap of bloody <em> dirt </em> when he realizes they're going to be hard to forget, in the form of an invisible warmth tentatively touching his shoulder.</p><p>Vanitas whips around violently, his keyblade cutting through empty air with a harsh metal whistle. The warmth drops from his shoulder to his hand, and he yanks that away too, backing away and scanning the graveyard. It’s not one of his Unversed -- he would have felt that. He should also be able to tell if something’s here, but nothing <em> is. </em> He scowls, and takes another step back -- directly into the presence again, on his arm.</p><p>He does <em> not </em> yelp, in fact he makes a very annoyed and manly growl, and spins again only to have his keyblade land on nothing and the warmth keep <em> touching him. </em> Vanitas’ shadow pulses, and two floods tear out of it and into the open expanse. </p><p>The presence leaves, for a second, like a hesitation, and then -- and Vanitas holds very still, because maybe if he can catch it while it’s doing something, he can figure out what it is -- <em> draws </em> three little spikes on his shoulderblade, where he can feel it. Whatever it’s trying to communicate, it…</p><p>...wait.</p><p>Vanitas freezes for a completely different reason. “...Do that again.”</p><p>It does, three little spike shapes with a line under it. </p><p>Vanitas scrambles to somewhere out of the open, a little cliff near the edge of the border. It has a little roof, so if anyone wanted him, they would have to come find him. And they might have to come find him anyway, because he <em> remembers </em> — he remembers someone telling him, or not him or whatever, he remembers a voice explaining that your soulmates can interact with you. That’s what they are, that’s what they’re for, that’s what they symbolize — intangible, inaudible, but an indescribable feeling of “they’re there”. People, people you will know, with you if you need them. He wants that memory to be made up, in all honesty. Doesn’t want anyone in his head. Or in his heart, the nasty broken thing, or anywhere else. He crouches under the rock face, yanks off his glove, and stares. The presence taps his shoulder, like an excited little clap, and pokes at the crown symbol decisively.</p><p>“...You?” Vanitas rasps, unbelieving.</p><p>The warmth pokes at it again, a little more forcefully.</p><p>“Stop,” he says, on reflex, and jerks his wrist back. “You’re not a real thing. Go away.”</p><p>They whack his elbow and poke at his wrist again, tracing both symbols. Vanitas tucks his hand into his chest, and then rethinks it and tugs his glove back on and shoves at the air, like it’ll get the person to leave. It decisively does not, and feels like he just shoved his hand into a beam of sunlight. Vanitas re-rethinks it and pulls himself away from the thing entirely.</p><p>Somehow the next touch feels apologetic, rather than warm. But the crown -- do they have a name? They should, right? -- taps him twice, on the knee, and doesn’t touch him again. </p><p>So maybe he can ask them to leave. Vanitas stays like that, just in case they’re still… watching, or something, for as long as it takes for one of the floods to get bored enough without the influx of irritation and come wiggling back to him through the ground. </p><p>He kinda forgets to kill it, and just traces the glove where his marks are, until it dissolves back into his shadow. </p><p>---</p><p>Vanitas lies to his Master when he asks about soulmates. </p><p>He considered telling him, actually, because he knows things, and he should know what it means that there are people and they’re watching him sometimes, but something stops him. </p><p>Namely, a bloody mouth.</p><p>
  <em> Become the x-blade. </em>
</p><p>That’s what he had said. <em> Alone in your suffering. More and more. </em></p><p>… Maybe this can be… maybe they should be his little secret. It’s not like disobeying the Master is something he’s opposed to doing, but it’s… something he maybe wants to avoid being obvious about. He doesn’t want to admit that they’re keeping him grounded, more than the teases and flickers he feels of Ventus’ dormant emotions. Ventus just feels blithe, they feel protective, or excited, or angry, even. They were there, or one of them was. Gripping his arm so hard it hurt like the rest of him, but they cleared the stars from his vision. </p><p>They’re different. The other one. He’s a little too out of it to figure out how he could tell the difference.</p><p>---</p><p>The one with the crown bugs him so often in the beginning that he starts calling them “your highness” or “sunshine” or “prince charming” and other such nicknames, which they don’t seem to like, but in a funny way. It sticks, embarrassingly enough. He doesn’t give the other one a nickname yet, it was a one-off, and even then he doesn’t always refer to them like that. With names. If he’s never going to meet them (which he’s already concluded), he shouldn’t really get attached to the idea that they’re people. </p><p>But eventually, the star mark gets a name. </p><p>They don’t show up, at first. Very much at all. Once, Vanitas could feel them nearby, just not interacting with him. He gets the feeling they don’t know what to feel about him, which is weird because it’s reciprocal that way, especially after they grabbed his hand and it felt like it was burning. They either feel scared or annoyed and blinding, or on the rare occasion, comforting. Like a blanket, not too bright. It’s cold when they leave, but he’s not going to admit that to them.</p><p>They come back once when Vanitas is stargazing. He jumps from rock to rock, trying to get to a better spot to see stars without any dust or Unversed or other bigger rocks in the way, and he finally makes it up to a really great vantage point when the whole thing crumbles below his feet and sends him tumbling to the ground. </p><p>Vanitas yelps, and smacks himself into a good number of falling rocks before remembering to teleport himself somewhere safer. He pops back into existence a few meters away, and stares at the crumbled rock formation.</p><p>The star one socks him in the arm.</p><p>“Hey!” he hisses, whirling around to face where they would be. “What?!”</p><p>He doesn’t get a response, but he rolls his eyes anyways and flops down onto his back. This is as good a place as any to watch stars and hope his soulmate can feel his annoyed confusion, he guesses. Man, he’s gonna have a bruise on his thigh.</p><p>Eventually, he feels the presence tap at the back of his hand. They’re doing something mindless, but it starts coalescing into a certain pattern -- up, left, down, down, right. Up, left, down, down, right. Vanitas squints. That <em> feels </em> familiar, what could...</p><p>“The constellation?”</p><p>A happy little tap -- and another up, left, down, down, right.</p><p>“Of course I know it,” Vanitas says, talking for some reason. “It’s how you find the North Star.”</p><p>Their hand is holding his, now -- and he only doesn’t take it back because it feels kind of nice. It’s not the searing warm this time, it’s just bright. Rubbing back and forth on his knuckles, like half an apology. It’s hard to talk to them without talking to them. He doesn’t know what they want, most of the time. Sometimes, he can feel what they feel, a little -- the star mark feels… an odd cocktail of lonely and nostalgic and ready to move. Like they belong up there, or they’re showing him something important. He has <em> no </em> idea what that means.</p><p>“Would Starlight be a stupid name?” he asks, suddenly. The presence freezes, and he sighs. “One tap yes, two for no.”</p><p>..<em> .yes… no. </em></p><p>“Thank you. That was useless.”</p><p>They hit him again. Gentler.</p><p>He ends up calling them light.</p><p>---</p><p><em> Get up, </em> the crown shoves at him, <em> get up now! </em></p><p>Vanitas rolls to the side and pulls himself into the shadow in the ground, a crackling bolt of electricity turning the dirt where he was to ash. He leaps out of the earth and stumbles, <em> again </em> with the stupid unhealed ankle, and crashes onto his side.</p><p>He does <em> not </em> make it out of that training session without learning to ignore his soulmates when they just exist next to him. They’re distractions, for the most part, Master Xehanort was right about that. Sometimes they tell him to move, and that’s good. Sometimes, he moves, and that’s bad.</p><p>He shoves them away when the Master leaves. They don’t need to watch him, they need to mind their business -- he lets off a small pack of Unversed in frustration and fear of pity, but yanks most of them back before he’s too tired to make any sort of point. It’s the light that curls up next to him, and keeps him warm as he falls asleep. They’re scared. How strange.</p><p>---</p><p>They’re strangely absent when the Master’s plans actually begin. They’re not there when Vanitas makes Unversed to lead the students around the worlds, and they’re not there when he’s busy travelling between them to make chaos.</p><p>The light was there once right after he planted words in Ventus’ head to manipulate him into leaving. They punched his arm again. He decides to ignore them, because they’re a good person, and they wouldn’t have approved -- but they know he’s <em> not </em> a good person by now, so whatever.</p><p>They do hit him again when he tries to <em> kill </em> Ventus. He might deserve that one, a little.</p><p>“This is the only way,” Vanitas mutters, half to himself. Half justifying himself. “You know that.”</p><p>He feels the crown hover near his hand, and then -- and then tap. <em> No. </em></p><p>“You have a better idea, then,” he growls.</p><p>...<em> No. </em></p><p>---</p><p>Both of them are tugging him around Disney Town. He absolutely despises it here, but they seem to love it.</p><p>Vanitas groans as they vie for his attention near the edge of the town itself. “<em> What? </em> What do you want?” </p><p>The light flutters with anticipation and taps his shoulder, turning him a little to the left.</p><p>“...The <em> racetrack? </em> What, you want to go kart racing with kiddy wheels? Do it yourselves,” Vanitas says, and starts to turn away, but the crown yanks his hand back to where it was. </p><p>“I’m <em> not-- </em> oh,” Vanitas stops. Those are not kiddy tracks. He squints -- those are full-on <em> cars </em> , bright colors notwithstanding, and other kinds of weird racing machines, and… is that -- it <em> is, </em> the Terra boy that Xehanort is so smug about, talking to someone under an umbrella roof and looking incredibly bored.</p><p>The light is tapping his arm with a sort of mischievous energy, and sunshine is doing almost the exact same thing on his other side.</p><p>Vanitas hesitates for a second longer. “I guess I could make it more interesting for him,” he mutters, and sets about studying the kart pieces.</p><p>(About ten minutes later, he’s gleefully watching Terra zip around to avoid getting beaned by his new Unversed, munching on a handful of kettle corn he stole from the town square. He had to rebuild them, once or twice, because neither of his soulmates approved of the extra spikes, but killing Terra isn’t on the to-do list. And he doesn’t have anywhere to be quite yet.)</p><p>---</p><p><em> An abomination without hope of salvation </em>, he hears. And Vanitas knew this already.</p><p>Still hurts, though. Almost as much as the phantom fingernails digging into his palm.</p><p>“It’s fine,” he mutters. A vicious tap twice on his thumb -- <em> no. </em></p><p>He doesn’t respond.</p><p>---</p><p>He pets a dog he finds in Neverland, an awkward pat once on its head. On sunshine’s request. He suspects it’s to make him feel better, he double suspects it’s to distract him from the massive horde of unversed being dispatched one by one on a different side of the islands. </p><p>It’s a nice gesture. Even if ultimately pointless, and even if the dog gets nervous and runs away.</p><p>---</p><p>Vanitas should probably have scoped out Aqua’s strength before attempting to fight her but, in his defense, Ventus is super weak and they were taught by the same teacher. So. He disappears into a dark corridor to lick his wounds, leaving her sleeping body where other people could find her.</p><p>The light hits him again.</p><p>“Are you going to do that <em> every </em> time?” Vanitas snaps. “I’m <em> winning, </em> what’s it to you?” In response, the light leaves entirely, but what he does feel is the crown clapping him on the shoulder with the most exasperation he has ever felt from a single touch.</p><p>“Shut up,” he growls, and yanks his shoulder away. He has <em> things </em> to do.</p><p>—</p><p>No one is there, when he finally clashes with Ventus and shatters their shared heart station. Maybe they can’t enter his heart, or maybe he’s just dying.</p><p>Vanitas’ consciousness fades with the light glinting off of the shattered x-blade, and only at the very end does he feel light grasp his hand on the way down.</p><p>Gods, that is the last thing he wanted to feel.</p><p>---</p><p>His replica is markless. Wrist smooth and without blemish. Perfect. Vexen tells him this.</p><p>But his soulmates are still there. </p><p>He pushes them away, when he comes back. Somewhere deep in his heart he knows he shouldn’t, but he does anyways. The Master brought him back to fix his mistake. He has a chance of claiming Ventus, his <em> other half </em> , again. <em> That </em> is more important, feeling whole is more important than two strangers nudging him into whatever they think he should do at the moment. He doesn’t need <em> help </em>, he doesn’t need to calm down, he needs to focus, and he needs to be angry. Vanitas refuses to acknowledge either of them the first three weeks, half a reconstructed being as he is, and after a while, they just stop trying to contact him. </p><p>He doesn’t regret it, especially not when he can feel them <em> nearby </em>, just not interacting with him. He doesn’t need them, the Master was right. They just get in the way. And if they won’t confront him about it, they’re cowards anyways. </p><p>---</p><p>“Ventus,” Vanitas purrs, edging forwards. “What a strange place to slither off to…”</p><p>The light’s hand is on his shoulder. It makes him aware of how much he’s straining to keep his voice, let alone his body, from shaking. </p><p>“You insignificant <em> speck.” </em></p><p>The hand yanks away. He resolutely ignores it like he’s been doing, no matter what they tell him, this is more important. </p><p>“Now, you will return Ventus to <em> me,” </em> he snarls, and wrenches the keyblade sideways — and <em> gets </em>wrenched sideways. Very suddenly.</p><p>And smacked straight into a snowdrift. The cold is a perfect representation of the utter shock he feels at getting… tossed. It very quickly heats into rage as the door closes and <em> disappears. </em></p><p>He picks himself up and runs to where it used to be. No dice -- just an <em> imprint </em> in the ground. He yanks his helmet off and digs his fingers into his hair.</p><p>Vanitas roars his fury to the snow, and the 0.1% chance there’s something alive nearby. He lights Void Gear up with a dark firaga and flings it into the emptiness, a popping sizzle and a hiss of steam following it as it makes a slick little melted ice cave down to the rock below. Seething, Vanitas flexes his already-numb fingers, about ready to melt a hole in the ground himself. </p><p>There’s a gentle touch from someone — warm, that’s the sunshine prince, isn't it, with an apologetic pat. They’re still unwelcome. Vanitas growls at them, and another presence replaces theirs, the light again. Their hand is — are they — are they <em> shaking? </em> Is that <em> laughter? </em> </p><p>Vanitas screams wordlessly between his teeth and summons his keyblade back to himself, swiping it through the air. Snow that was in his hood before sloughs out and onto the ground, some of it dripping down his neck, and he refuses to acknowledge it. The light gives him one last amused flick, and leaves. </p><p>Stupid cheeky soulmates stupid furry rectangle behemoth stupid <em> destiny bond </em>he hopes they never actually meet. </p><p>---</p><p>Vanitas feels very, very sick.</p><p>The disgusting chimera monster he had created was mostly made out of other peoples’ emotions, to supplement his own. Now that it was dead, his emotions had flooded back to him in a slow ooze, bringing odd slivers and rushes of foreign fear back with them. He shouldn’t be feeling those at all. If he gets rid of them, in the shape of Unversed, will they come back the same way? Is he stuck with bits and pieces of strangers? Should he try before the final battle? </p><p>Ventus is back. Awake. Vanitas had teased him into it, threatened him into saving his precious sister. Ventus feels a lot of things, too, less foreign, but not his. Both of those concepts hurt.</p><p>Is he going to die tomorrow? Does he care? Do they understand? Is Terra safe? Can he tear Ventus apart to reach the heart inside? Why does Sora look at him like that? </p><p>He’s feeling too many things.</p><p>Vanitas feels sunshine turn him to the side seconds before he throws up. The black sludge burns in his throat, almost clawing its way out. He’s in a dark corridor, which is his first thought, so he’s safe -- his second thought is that he wants to lie down, right now.</p><p>He does. There’s a warm hand stroking his hair.</p><p>Why do they still care?</p><p>He ignores the Unversed that whines and pulls its way painfully out of the slime. It doesn’t matter.</p><p>---</p><p>Vanitas is dying again.</p><p>Sunshine is tugging his wrists, ever so gently forwards. And starlight isn’t angry at him, they just… they’ve placed their hand on his heart, and he can feel it through the contact, reminding him that he’s alive right now, regardless of what else might happen.</p><p>Vanitas is too tired to be contrary.</p><p>“Okay,” he croaks, and opens his palms towards Sora’s matching position. “You all want it so bad, you can take it, one ward to another. But this is -- I’m not -- I’m not your precious <em> light </em>, Sora.” A warning, if anything.</p><p>“I know,” Sora says, and catches Vanitas’ heart in his palms as the darkness spills off into the sky. </p><p>The last thing he feels is a gentle embrace.</p><p>---</p><p>Everything else happens in a rush, to him, though it takes forever. </p><p>Vanitas finds out you can only receive help from your soulmates if you meet them in the future, and he might have taken better care to not piss them off if he had known that. Or maybe not. </p><p>He also finds out that Even (Vexen..? He doesn’t like either of them) has the data present for his marks, but didn’t deem them necessary at first. He declines when he asks if he would like them back. It would involve needles.</p><p>He finds out that Sora’s little light gang has darkness aplenty, no matter what they all look like on the outside, he’s just an inside out person. A shell of light around darkness around a light core, they are, rather than a shell of darkness around a dark core, and the strange blonde girl telling him that darkness, like the paints he fumbles through with her sometimes, has shades. He finds out the thing keeping them together is their bonds with each other, and not even the destiny kind. </p><p>Some part of him used to know that. An echo of <em> alone in your suffering </em>threatens to tell them how worthless friendships are, and an echo of comforting taps keeps it at bay. </p><p>And Vanitas finds out that even though he specifically wants time and space and a quiet corner outside where he could run a thousand miles before someone noticed he was gone and asked where he was, the right-side-out lights do not have that, they have big rooms and conversations.</p><p>Which is how he finds himself in a corner of the library, surrounded by the wonder twins and eating a granola bar, being coerced into a conversation about soulmates he doesn’t want to have. </p><p>“Is that all you know about them?” Xion asks. She’s munching on a stick of ice cream, strawberry this time, because the convenience store only had leftovers. The way her new overalls work, they only half-cover her soulmarks -- everything except for the edges of a strange spiked shape and the tip of a three-pronged crown.</p><p>“Yeah,” Ven says, chin in his hand. “The half-filled heart symbol was a keychain I found. Or -- I mean, a keychain I made, but I found the stuff for it on Destiny Islands. It could be anything from there!”</p><p>He could leave. The room, that is. He increasingly wants to. </p><p>“But I never saw any symbol like this anywhere,” Sora pipes up. “It’s gotta be something else.”</p><p>“It’s symbolic,” Roxas says. “So you might be overthinking it.”</p><p>“Probably.”</p><p>“Well, we know they’re not around a lot. Maybe we haven’t met them yet.”</p><p>“Eehhhhh,” Xion says in a high pitched note, angling her head towards Vanitas. He can feel himself being pulled into the conversation whether he wants it or not, or whether Ven wants it or not, judging by the quick shuffle his face does between a scowl, tentative hope, and curiosity. Oh, no. What she's implying? Definitely not. He won't lie and say he hasn't considered any of Sora's friends or Ventus as <em>being</em> the two presences in his life, but every time he considers them he shuts it down. That's a chest full of unwanted baggage.</p><p>“Vanitas doesn’t have one, Xion. He told me so,” Ventus says. His voice is <em> dangerously </em> unsure, though. “Right?”</p><p>“You’re certainly annoying enough, but no thank you,” Vanitas scoffs.</p><p>...Somehow that was the wrong thing to say.</p><p>“Wait a second! You <em> lied </em>? Why didn’t you tell us you had a soulmate?”</p><p>“I <em> don’t </em> have any,” Vanitas growls. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I misspoke.”</p><p>“How’d you know they were annoying?”</p><p>“I meant — everyone knows they’re supposed to bug you.”</p><p>“Not always,” Ventus presses. “And you said ‘have any’ when I asked for one!”</p><p>Now the rest of them are perked up and watching him. Vanitas disguises his squirm with a scoff. “You just said you have four each. Try me.” He waves the granola wrapper in Ven’s face. </p><p>Ven grabs the wrapper and stuffs it in his pocket. “I don’t. I have two. Sora is the only one with four, because he’s an enigma who got two pairs.”</p><p>“Because I have a lot of love,” Sora sniffs. “Destiny love.”</p><p>“Gross,” Vanitas deadpans. Roxas rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t lying. I don’t have soulmarks.” </p><p>“You don’t necessarily have to have marks to have soulmates,” Roxas says. Vanitas loses the respect for him he had gained watching him make snarky comments and stay mostly out of the conversation. </p><p>“It makes sense. You match a lot of their descriptions,” Xion says. </p><p>“You’re infuriating.”</p><p>“You could blood bond right now and prove your point.”</p><p>“What did they look like?”</p><p>“None of your<em> business,” </em> Vanitas snaps, standing up. He doesn’t have to listen. Or deal. </p><p>“Vanitas,” Ventus says, in that mildly angry disappointed way he does when he thinks he knows better. Vanitas refuses to look at him as he stalks out the door. </p><p>He hears them continue the conversation as he leaves. Honestly? He doesn’t care if they find out he secretly has people he’s supposed to be caring about. He just doesn’t want to be there for the nagging at him when they do. </p><p>An hour. He gets an hour of stewing by himself before Sora knocks on his door, and he knows it’s Sora because Sora knocks in a cute little pattern. </p><p>Ignoring him, like he usually ignores the others, does not work in the same way as with Sora. He pokes his head in after one pattern-knock. </p><p>“Hey, Vanitas?”</p><p>Vanitas groans. “What do you want, Sora.” He knows exactly what Sora wants, he’s just hoping he’ll get nervous and drop it. </p><p>No luck. “Sorry about the soulmate thing. I got really excited, we didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”</p><p>“Sure. Yeah.” Or however he’s supposed to accept an apology. “Do you want anything else?”</p><p>”Did you actually have any?“</p><p>What does he want, a confession? “... I got rid of them. It’s not any of your business.”</p><p>”It is kind of, and that’s not how it works. ...The marks, right? Not the people?” Sora asks, tentatively.</p><p>”What? No, not the people.”</p><p>“Do you think we could try it, then?”</p><p>“Try what,” Vanitas says dryly. </p><p>“Blood bond. And if it doesn’t work, you don’t have to worry about it, right? I’ll tell everyone to drop it.”</p><p>Leave it to Sora to find the thing he wants out of it in the most pushy way possible. “No,” he says. </p><p>“Please?”</p><p>“<em>Why </em> are you so sure it’s me?”</p><p>“I’m not! I mean, I have guesses. Xion had to get her marks back with the whole replica thing.” Vanitas winces internally. “And it does make sense. The heart symbol, and everyone’s connections, and, their general, um, attitude, and…”</p><p>“And what.”</p><p>“Um,” Sora‘s shoulders go up to his ears. “When I was four I nicknamed you — or whoever they are — uh, Grumpy.”</p><p>Vanitas snorts, and then barks a laugh, and covers it with his hand. Sora grins and lowers his shoulders a little. </p><p>“So, I just want to know! If you’re the same person. Because they were kind of a jerk sometimes, but I owe them a thank you,” he says. </p><p>Vanitas lets his laugh trail off into silence, and drops his gaze. He’s not sure he wants a thank you. If it is, by some awful coincidence, him. He doesn’t want to be tied to them. He doesn’t want to be one of them. But he desperately wants to be one of something. </p><p>“...What happens? When you bond. Or whatever.”</p><p>Sora lights up, even though he didn’t affirm anything. “I’ve done it three times now. You get sent back to wherever the universe thinks you’ll be needed in each other’s lives so far! As a heart ghost or something. It takes a while when you’re there, but it’ll only take a couple seconds real-time, honest.”</p><p>“And then?” </p><p>“And then nothing. Either it works or it doesn’t, and if it works, we know you made the right choice and you’re supposed to be here with us. And if it doesn't, same thing, but with less destiny and more choice-y stuff.”</p><p>Stupid Sora saying asinine things that get right under his skin. “...I don’t want you in my head, Sora.”</p><p>“No thoughts or anything. Just touch.”</p><p>Vanitas spins slowly in his chair, giving Sora a long look. It’s oddly enough less and less like looking into a mirror the more he does it. Sora’s face is simple and open and trusting, and if Vanitas declines, Sora <em>will</em> drop it. </p><p>“It’s not nice and pretty like yours.”</p><p>Sora gives him a rueful grin, the first real emotion Vanitas thinks he’s seen in weeks. “I didn’t think so. But don’t get your hopes up.”</p><p>Vanitas scoots off his chair and onto the floor, where Sora folds himself into criss cross applesauce. “So, what, you want me to stab myself?”</p><p>“Just your thumb or something, <em> please,” </em> Sora says, and fishes in his pocket to produce a tiny pocketknife. “You only have to touch a little bit for it to work.” He pricks his own thumb, and hands the blade to Vanitas. </p><p>He swipes it across his own, and puts it down, and hesitates. “If it doesn’t work?”</p><p>“Then it doesn’t work. Nothing happens.”</p><p>Vanitas nods, and holds his hand out. Sora grabs it —</p><p>and immediately he’s flung out of his body and into the nothingness. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"title your fics seriously" you'll never catch me</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Sora</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Thought one: many, many shouted curses. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thought two: deep, writhing dread. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thought three: hey, I know where I am. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s on Destiny Islands. The little one, with the treehouse. He never did get to explore, too furious and focused on Ventus to take a look around. It’s pleasant out, just past nightfall, a cool breeze pushing away the hot remnants of the sun. It would be more pleasant if Vanitas weren’t just suddenly </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, it worked. It worked, and one of his soulmates is </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora</span>
  </em>
  <span> -- which one? Probably sunshine. Oh he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> telling him their nicknames. Sora is probably seeing the badlands. He has a bond with Sora. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>probably Ventus.</span>
  </em>
  <span> This, Vanitas thinks, is already torture.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Is that a baby?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It occurs to Vanitas that he’s never actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen</span>
  </em>
  <span> a baby. The little human that runs along the sand like it’s leaping every step looks like what he remembers baby </span>
  <em>
    <span>meaning</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Kinda wobbly, fluffy hair, little limbs that stick out of oversized shorts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Riiikuuuuu!” The baby shouts, and Vanitas realizes with a start that that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sora</span>
  </em>
  <span>-baby. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No, he doesn’t want to be here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora slows down and stops, turning around and looking furtively at the empty beach. “Riku!” He shouts again, weirdly high pitched and squeaky to Vanitas’ ears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas looks around as well, but not for Riku. He’s not sure</span>
  <em>
    <span> what</span>
  </em>
  <span> he’s looking for, not until Sora dashes past him again and straight into a pile of much more dangerous rocks and tidepools. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He trips and falls. And starts crying. Vanitas stares. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What was it Sora had said? The universe puts you where you’re supposed to be to see stuff? Why was he supposed to see a baby crying? Was he supposed to… </span>
  <em>
    <span>prevent</span>
  </em>
  <span> the baby from crying? He’s not doing that. If he runs into rocks, he deserves to trip. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>… so this is also how he finds out he can’t make Unversed as a time-traveling soulmate heart ghost. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sort of just sits there for a while, watching Sora sniffle and hover his hands around his freshly-scraped knees. Maybe if he doesn’t interact with him, he won’t</span>
  <em>
    <span> be</span>
  </em>
  <span> a time-traveling soulmate heart ghost. Which is ridiculous. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas gives up and walks over to the Sora in the rocks wiping his eyes with sandy hands. He hesitates, and then just… puts his hand on his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora squeaks — not quite a scream. Vanitas pulls his hand away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait!” Sora says, grasping at the air above his head. “Come back!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas does. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora smiles, wobbly. “Hey… are you another souls mate?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Soulmate.” Vanitas corrects. Sora doesn’t hear him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s cool. I have four,” Sora says, pointing to a spot over his heart. So Vanitas has heard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you the spiky one? You feel kinda spiky.” Vanitas isn’t sure if that’s a compliment. He doesn’t get to figure out how to explain which one he ...is. To Sora. Before the kid keeps talking. “Did you come to tell me to stop crying?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Um. Yes? Well, no, but. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Little Sora nods. A big decision-nod. “Don’t worry! I’m okay. I fall all the time.” He picks himself out of the rocks, a little wobbly on his legs. “Have you seen Riku?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No. Vanitas… pulls his hand away? Actually — he taps twice. And then pulls his hand away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hmm. Maybe his dad took him home. He never lets us finish our game,” Sora pouts. Very conversational little kid. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m gonna go home too,” Sora decides, suddenly, and takes off towards the center of the island without another thought. “Thanks bye!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he feels the memory slide. That was easy. Is that all he had to do? Why did he have to see that? Sora was so small. And trusting. And really dumb, but that hadn’t changed from now to present-time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Too late, on to the next one. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora has nightmares sometimes — nothing terrible enough to keep him awake for much longer after Vanitas gives him a pat or a hello or something. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to do very much more than that, because he has no clue how to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’d fight off a monster, right?” Sora asks once. “Mom says she’d fight off monsters, but she’s asleep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course. Vanitas is bigger, and scarier, than monsters. There aren’t any here, anyways. And if there were, he wouldn’t be able to touch them. But he’s tougher than monsters. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora fell asleep seconds after he asked. Vanitas’ hand lingers in his hair. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You are so… small,” Vanitas says, trying to figure out if he means it with discomfort or not. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas finds himself doing little things for Sora. Kicking his shin when he says something stupid, or pushing him away from a </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad decision. Like a conscience, which makes Vanitas laugh. What a choice. Though he supposes Ventus is here too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thought never fails to fill him with dread. If he keeps thinking about the ramifications of what he’s doing at any single moment, he’ll probably stop functioning. Luckily, he’s good at compartmentalizing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He encounters Ventus a few times. Not encounter so much as feel him in passing, but regardless — they’re there at the same time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora likes to talk to his soulmates. He likes to talk about them. He likes to ask questions, so much that Vanitas develops a slightly more complex tap system than he had himself, with just yes and no. One is yes, two is no, three is “maybe” or “I don’t know”. A short press-rub is “hello” or “I’m here”. Two fingers is “wait”, or “I’m thinking”. Three is “what?”. Pulling is obviously “follow me”, and Sora uses the last one, Sora uses two pats or straight-up a kiss to the hand to say “thank you”. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s kicking his feet in his room, working on a little friendship bracelet of some sort. “Sooo… do you have red hair?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Black hair?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Seashell has black hair too! Do you know them?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>...No? I don’t know. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, ummm… what’s your favourite animal?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas can’t answer that one, no nouns. Sora giggles at something. “Wait. Okay. Is your favourite animal… a dog?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s only ever seen two dogs. And a horse. He liked the dog better, so he says </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I like dogs too!! If I get a dog, I’ll let you guys pet her.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Guys, plural? </span>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want to have one so bad, but my mom says that I can’t get one until I’m older.” Okay, thank you Sora. Can we go back? He didn’t get here that long ago, was Sora talking to someone else earlier? Vanitas taps </span>
  <em>
    <span>what?</span>
  </em>
  <span> with a little more force. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh! You’re both still here, right? Have you met? I guess I forgot you can’t see each other like I can’t see you.” Sora puts down his bracelet and tugs his pajama shirt away to point at his marks. “This is flower, but that’s a silly name because my mom said it. And this is… um…” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas glances to Sora’s other side, to maybe glimpse Ventus, but no dice, just air. Can they touch? Vanitas considers waving his hand through him, a tease for the name and how Sora’s thinking of a better name for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> than “heart” or “grumpy” — which he did have the pleasure of witnessing for himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heart… friend.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ah. Not a better one, then. He can almost hear Ventus laughing. Sora flushes a little. “I’m not good at names…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas agrees. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>nightmare</span>
  </em>
  <span> storm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas opens his eyes in the middle of a howling, swirling maelstrom of darkness, and reaches out and yanks Sora back by the collar </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> as he’s about to charge his way into one of the dark corridors. That would be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>supremely</span>
  </em>
  <span> stupid decision, none of them are stable, all swirling about like a psychedelic painting, shadows making it halfway out of some and spilling out of others. A festering dark portal opens up beneath him anyways.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora shoves his hand away and reaches forwards, desperately. Towards Riku. Towards darkness--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a bright flash of light, a shift of energy Vanitas feels like a sudden change in air pressure, and Sora has his hands on a bright gold-yellow pommel. The darkness scatters from it, almost instantly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your keyblade…” Vanitas breathes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora stares in wonder, and confusion, and he doesn’t have any idea what’s happening to him. Seeing the weapon, Shadows converge on him like locusts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas grabs his hand, hard, the one he’s holding the keyblade with. You can fight them with this, he wills Sora to understand. Don’t let them hurt you. You can fight them with this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas can help him fight. He won’t help him pick himself up afterwards, because that’s what his odd companions are for. Even if Vanitas could lend him some of his magic over their heart-ghost-bond, he’s not sure he could cast anything like Cure. So, he helps him fight, like they did to him. He likes passing the time like that anyways.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora seems to be enjoying it after a while. He gets cocky, and Vanitas is sure to let that bite him so he doesn’t get </span>
  <em>
    <span>too </span>
  </em>
  <span>overconfident. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Doesn’t always work. Sometimes Vanitas feels like he’s watching a version of himself, when Sora does something like jump into the centre of a pack of heartless and swing wildly to take them out himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The thought… isn’t actually a comfort. But it’s not horrible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he’s in a room that makes his brain hurt looking down a dais at a Shadow and Sora is nowhere to be seen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Shadow stares at him. He stares back. Can it see him?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wobbles away instead. Not sure what else to do, Vanitas trails after it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shadows walk so weirdly. Their feet are too big, so they waddle, but like they’re swimming, too. Ridiculous little things. At least his Unversed don't swim-waddle. Vanitas keeps looking around for Sora, but there’s not a Sora to look for, and he’s getting increasingly suspicious of the little heartless peeking around corners and backtracking and doing… other very human things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pokes it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It startles so hard it falls over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sora?” Vanitas says, his eyes going wide. The Shadow runs off in the opposite direction, </span>
  <em>
    <span>wshwshwsh</span>
  </em>
  <span>-ing in distress. Vanitas steps in front of it, making it — him — skid to a halt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Where</span>
  </em>
  <span> is your body?” Vanitas snaps. Like he can tell someone off for irresponsibly losing it. The irony is not lost on him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Shadow, of course, doesn’t argue back. He just turns around and starts heading in the direction he came from. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas steps in front of him again. He turns around. “Alright,” Vanitas mutters, and nudges the Shadow with his foot. He moves. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He directs Sora all the way out of the winding nonsense corridors of wherever they’ve ended up, at which the little ant perks up and starts running — well, waddling, significantly faster. Vanitas puts his hands on his hips. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shadow. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He makes a mental note to ask Sora a series of “what the heck” questions. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora can get angry. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not the kind of angry that makes him squeak out “you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” at his best friend, the kind of angry that makes him swipe viciously at the air with his keyblade and snap at his companions and dig his fingernails into his palm as he tears through room after room of a blank castle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas wasn’t sure he had it in him. Also not sure what to do about it, he gives Sora a nudge to knock him back into reality. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora stops seething, but his expression dips into something worse. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know you,” he starts, slowly. Vanitas feels the start of confusion, of a lingering ‘oh, no’. “I do. I know you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In a sense,” Vanitas replies, idly wary. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora’s expression drops further. “I don’t remember why, though. It’s— the—“ He cuts off, gesturing angrily at the white walls. “The castle. I can’t…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The castle… is making him forget? He’ll remember eventually, though, right? Sora’s talked about it. And his life before this. Vanitas pokes at the spot over his heart he remembers Sora saying his marks were, to jog his memory. Sora rubs at it, with his thumb, screwing up his face in concentration. His hand passes through Vanitas’, repetitively. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re important to me,” Sora says. “That’s enough. I remember that, and I remember Naminé.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas draws his hand back. Naminé? Is this her — is this the place she was talking about? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Important to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...Sora’s asleep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t touch him. He can only watch him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s quiet. Some machinery hums.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This isn’t Sora’s. But it’s a very, very long memory. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas thinks he must go a while without — like, needing him? Or wanting him or something, because the next time he sees Sora he looks different. And he only gets little short moments of </span>
  <em>
    <span>move</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t do that!</span>
  </em>
  <span> or </span>
  <em>
    <span>hit it now!</span>
  </em>
  <span> in between then and a memory where he can actually talk to Sora.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas also finds that the more Sora grows up — the more he stops looking so little and naïve and fragile (he never stops being fluffy, though), the less he treats him… softly. Something about how small he was struck a nerve, he finds himself relaxing back into the more casual attitude he usually keeps around Sora. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s raining outside whatever hotel they’re in. The hotel itself is completely empty, hardly even furnished, but he’s curled up on one of the chairs, watching the rain streak the neon outside into new shapes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora looks tired. He looks like he cast Cura on himself, but didn’t quite heal everything, and then he forgot to cast it again. He sat down sideways, and he’s thrown most of his belongings across the chair and the floor, kicked off one and a half of his shoes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas nudges the foot still holding on to the toe of his shoe. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hello. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s delayed, but Sora looks up. “Oh. Oh! Hey, where have you been?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t know. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He tries to make that feel somewhat accusatory. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess you don’t choose when to show up. Sorry if you did show up before and I didn’t notice, I’ve been—“ he exhales. “Real busy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lots of weird nonsense,” Sora grumbles. “I’m gonna break into a castle tomorrow, ‘cause of the— there’s these weird coat guys, they suck to fight because they’re not regular guys they’ve got like, water power and stuff, and they keep calling me Roxas, and I don’t really even </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> a Roxas but I guess he’s somewhere and I’m in the way, and one of them was — friends, I guess. H-He.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora angrily scrubs at the tears forming on the edges of his eyes. Vanitas doesn’t quite know how to deal with a crying </span>
  <em>
    <span>grown-up</span>
  </em>
  <span> Sora, what did Roxas do? He doesn’t know this about them. He doesn’t know a lot about them, he thinks, with a little guilt, that he could have known if he had asked, probably. Before doing this at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry. ‘M really tired,” Sora sighs, and finally un-scrunches himself from the chair to stretch out more comfortably, his head lolling back over the wood edging. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You look awful,” Vanitas comments. Sora shuts his eyes like he’s about to fall asleep, on the chair, and Vanitas nearly gets up to try to move him because breaking into a castle with horrible muscle cramps might not be the best he could do. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I killed them,” Sora whispers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>...What?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I did.” His voice is getting hoarse. “I think they’re people. I thought they were all bad, but, maybe they’re not, because Axel was nice to me. Or who he thought I was. I think they’re mad at me because I killed Roxas and took him away somewhere and I don’t remember.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What? No! No,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas tries to tap, and then realizes the numerical system isn’t helping him because he’s just tapping a whole bunch of times in a row. He slows down so Sora can feel the words. Roxas is fine, you just stuck him in a heart box. Apparently without your knowledge. And nobodies don’t die like normal people, they… reform, or something. He knows that about them. Sora has killed, sure, but he’s too soft for something like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘S okay if you’re mad.” For the love of — Vanitas almost hits him, but realizes that might make him think he’s mad even more. He shoves his hand into Sora’s hair and ruffles it, as hard as he sees Terra do to Ventus. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora snorts, half a laugh. “Okay, sorry. Wow, I sounded like a downer there for a second.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s not what Vanitas wanted him to say either, he was going for a ‘let’s look at this practically’. He pulls back and considers this Sora, similar to the Sora he knows and different from the Sora he’s watched in the Land of Departure. Sure, he knew Sora had darkness in him, but he wasn’t sure of how self-aware he was. His masks are… immaculate. That’s not a trait he had before, and it’s not one he passed to Vanitas. He developed that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks, shadow.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You like it? It’s a new nickname. Y’know, ‘cause I can tell you about dark stuff, and that was my neighbor’s old cat’s name, and you’re all, myeh! like a Shadow.” Don't change the subject so— </span>
  <em>
    <span>Myeh? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Neighbor’s cat? The heck is a neighbor? And a cat? He is</span>
  <em>
    <span> nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> like a Shadow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No??</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I like it,” Sora grins, and darts down and kisses his hand before he can yank it away in embarrassment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He doesn’t touch Sora, in the Realm of Darkness. Sora knows he’s there, but he has his comfort. From other people.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sits next to where he thinks Ventus is, and wonders at how different it would be if they were really there, and if Ventus knew who he was, instead of just “other soulmate”.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas has never fought Terra, not really. He distracted him once, for a few minutes while he was trying to get to Master Xehanort -- but never </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> fought him. Following Sora in frantic bursts and lunges, though, he finally understands why the Master wanted him so bad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Terra’s soul is </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> powerful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Here,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas taps, and Sora rolls to the side, jumps back, gets in one hit glancing off Terra’s shoulder plate armor before the combatants zip away from each other. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Behind, left -- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Terra acts too fast for Vanitas to give advice or pull Sora into attacks, he’s just acting like a homing beacon for danger. Telling him where the armor is, if it’s coming for him. Vanitas drops into a shadow and arcs around Sora’s side, quick taps and trust the only way they can communicate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The fight takes </span>
  <em>
    <span>forever.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Sora is battered and bruised and breathing hard by the end of it, when he finally slams his keyblade so hard into the hollow armor shell that it cracks, and Terra stops. Vanitas feels a <em>rush</em> of triumph, but Terra doesn't drop -- just kneels.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The words it says are like wind whistling through a mangled wreck of a metal structure, echoing and making deep hums from within its cavernous chest. Vanitas understands none of them, but he can’t help but feel like it’s looking straight at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And after everything, Sora goes back to </span>
  <em>
    <span>school</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Vanitas decides he hates school, but math is alright. So’s the poetry unit. Science is boring. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora talks to him about Roxas, and his other soulmates. He talks about how if the books were about soulmates or heart bonds or nobodies, or Gummi ship construction, even, maybe he would pay attention. He sounds like Ventus with theory textbooks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas doesn’t do much on the islands. But Sora wants to talk, so there he is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Okay, so that’s a cat. He thinks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is Jellybean!” Sora says, gleefully. Ventus is somewhere in this room as well, overjoyed, he can feel it. The universe decided they both needed to see a cat...dog. Thing. Balloon. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It does look a little familiar. Sora calls it a dream eater spirit, and it reminds him of a weird sweet-emotion Unversed, but it also kind of reminds him of something else. He can’t quite get to the memory, though. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jellybean rolls over and squeaks, and Vanitas steps out of the way, even though it can’t see him or touch him. And then it makes a deflating noise, and rolls across the cobblestone with the force of its own air. Sora laughs, delighted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...weird little creature. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Punch him,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas wants to tell Sora. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Punch him right in his smug face. That’s Xehanort, punch him!</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cognitive dissonance upon, first of all, </span>
  <em>
    <span>seeing</span>
  </em>
  <span> a Xehanort in Sora’s dreams, with seeing a much </span>
  <em>
    <span>younger</span>
  </em>
  <span> Xehanort, with seeing everyone else Sora was pretty sure he got rid of before, with suddenly being in a very colorful field with music playing from somewhere, is a little too much to handle at once, so Vanitas’ brain reverts to: fight. He tried to hit him when he showed up, but apparently he can only interact with Sora.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he wants Sora to punch him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora actually whacks at Vanitas to get him to stop pushing, choosing to converse instead. And then young Xehanort </span>
  <em>
    <span>disappears, </span>
  </em>
  <span>rendering the opening to punch him null. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas snaps at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know I shouldn’t listen to him,” Sora snaps back. “I don’t know what he </span>
  <em>
    <span>means! </span>
  </em>
  <span>Uuugghh, this test is so confusing!</span>
  <em>
    <span>”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dang it, Sora! He’s distracted by a glowing thing behind him, all music and ephemeral paper and light. Sora jumps as it makes a home in his heart, trailing its little bell-tune melody. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a nice song, Vanitas guesses. He doesn’t have context for it, but at least Sora is back to smiling in an instant. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gets dra    d  i   o th   d  pths    l ep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>      oa,  h t      wrong w </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>t o h     e        ll th    static  n   s hea </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So a?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>ra, </span>
  <em>
    <span>whe  ar     u?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  
  <em>
    <span>we?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>      ‘m here</span>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>  ke up</span>
</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he’s awake! </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas shakes fuzz out of his brain, comes to next to Sora in the ground of the Tower. He has… no idea what just happened, only that it felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>bad, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and he doesn’t care for that at </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The heart shouldn’t be able to glitch like that. He’s a projection of his heart right now, can it be affected by the memory ‘s events? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora’s hyperventilating, though, and that’s more immediate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Whoa, okay, hey, kid, look here! Eyes up here,” Axel is saying. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ground as well, Sora half in his lap. Vanitas scrambles over, passing through both Ventus and a presence he doesn’t recognize yet to grab at Sora’s hands, clenched into fists in Axel’s coat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora flinches away from him, for a second, which hurts more than he thought it would. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Slow down. Follow me. You can feel me breathing, right?” Axel sounds shaky, like he’s saying words he knows but hasn’t put into practice for a very long time. Sora nods once, jerkily, He tries his best to mimic Axel‘s measured inhale, and stutters. Vanitas touches his hand again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hello. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hello. Hello, I’m here. Hello, I’m here. Hello. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Slowly, he stops breathing too fast. And slowly, he grips Vanitas’ hand back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora finally sits up of his own accord. “There, see? Totally fine,” Axel says. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Totally fine. Vanitas exhales loudly, loosening his own grip on Sora, but not pulling his hand away. Frankly, it’s inane how far Vanitas has fallen. So far as to hope Sora is</span>
  <em>
    <span> okay, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and safe. He maybe understands Riku a bit more now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora has to learn some things over, which means Vanitas just has to help him fight again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t need the instincts, he just needs to regain the confidence and power. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Okay, well, seeing himself is a little weird. </span>
</p>
<p><span>Why did he make such a big speech again? It was cool, and important, but he may have been a little long-winded. If he had time to edit, it would have been better, but the lizard was more impatient than Larxene, and that’s </span><em><span>really </span></em><span>saying</span> <span>something. Vanitas draws up his lips in an </span><em><span>eeh</span></em><span>. </span></p>
<p>
  <span>… he goes and flicks his helmet. Tugs on his coatstrings. No effect. Man those things are hot on the inside. Soft leather? Granted, the darkness bodysuit he used to wear kept his temperature from getting too extreme, but man.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He slowly pulls Sora back from himself by the shoulders. Sora’s confident, and super ready to throw down with just about anyone, but Vanitas knows his own strength. And his own plan. It works out fine, but he’d rather mitigate the damage. Done by… himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wait, this is the part where he gets thrown through a door. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora goes back to collect things from almost every world he goes to. He’s procrastinating, or maybe just gathering strength. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas likes the pirate world, though. He wants to captain a flying goddess crab ship and get sideways looks and whispers that call him the “Scourge of the Sea” or “Leviathan-born” or “Hellspawn’s Prince”. Those are</span>
  <em>
    <span> cool.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even warning Sora of at least four surprise attacks to get his “fortune” or “favor” (or probably hold him for ransom, but against what? The sea??) is cool. He feels something like pride in his chest when Sora sends them packing. Sora laughs at his excited touches.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas sees himself again. Shattered helmet, shedding darkness, head held high. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks gaunt. And furious, and determined, and completely resigned. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora looks the same as he did. Upset, confused, hesitant. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Go get me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Vanitas reluctantly pushes at Sora’s back. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I think I know what I’m doing, but I don’t yet. I’m gonna hate it and it’s gonna suck for a while, and we’re gonna mess up a lot, but go get me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll need you. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s watching the replica body in the lab. He’s watching himself shove Sora out of a hug, get into a fight, talk on the edge of the island, tease him about Riku. A whirlwind of short flickers and moments go faster and faster and then— </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s sitting on the floor of his room with Sora.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas </span>
  <em>
    <span>jumps</span>
  </em>
  <span> backward, tripping over his inconveniently-placed jacket and falling flat on his back. Oh, no, the consequences of what they just did is catching up to him. A Mandrake tears from his shadow. Vanitas digs his nails into the carpet and shoves his darkness into place. He watched Sora </span>
  <em>
    <span>grow up. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Was that good enough — did he disappoint him? A Scrapper claws itself free. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...nitas? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Vanitas?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora. Vanitas’ head snaps up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora’s crying. His face is red, he’s crying, he’s made Sora cry. “Are,” he swallows. “You okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas opens a dark corridor and scrambles into it as fast as humanly possible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t mean to go to Destiny Islands. It was on his mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In any case, he lands on the sand and takes off running, all the way away from the ocean, more and more small rocks jabbing at his bare feet, under a rock overhang into the cool air of a cave trailing the small feelings, trailing fears and irritations and disappointments and some larger angers that he dismisses in a furious convulsion of will. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe he shouldn’t have run straight into the secret place, the scratchy drawings are </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> helping. But he does anyway, and stops when the ceiling gets too low to run through. Vanitas presses his back to the wall, and slides down, scattering his Unversed and pushing them away towards the entrance. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Slowly, they stop spilling from him, but he doesn’t want them gone yet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he knows exactly when Sora finds him again, and starts gently picking his way through the floods and shoegazers and hareraisers milling about the cave without orders. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora sits down next to him. And picks up a flood and starts petting it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas sighs, heavily. “Sora. I told you to stop doing that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“C’mon, they love it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They do not. They can hardly feel it, they give half of it to me. They can only ‘enjoy’ leeching off your own emotions.” This is an old argument, one Vanitas doesn’t actually get angry at. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora gives it a scratch on the chin, which by now Vanitas is suspecting he knows he likes, and stops. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...was it really this bad?” Sora asks, observing the crowd of waiting Unversed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas drops his head further into his knees. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you did a good job. I hope I did. It’s kinda hard to tell in the moment, but I might have annoyed you more than helped,” Sora grins, leaning over his own knees to look at Vanitas’ face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not the</span>
  <em>
    <span> problem, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Sora. It’s that you were there at all,” he snaps, and then turns away to hide his frustration.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora hums, like a question mark, waiting for him to keep talking. Vanitas works on drawing his Unversed back to him for some time before continuing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re… I gave you leverage. I didn’t want to do it in the first place because I don’t want you… thinking you know better now. You’re stubborn. And now you know I was there, too,” he explains. He’s not beating around the bush, he’s trying to explain the thought process out loud, even with how stuttery it sounds to his ears. At least, that’s supposed to help.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know I’d never use your past against you like that,” Sora says. “Or mine. I’m sad, because most of what I saw hurts a lot. I can’t imagine how much it hurt you. But I’m not different now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t. Actually know that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora shuffles his feet. “I can promise right now? Nothing that we bonded over leaves the secret place.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas picks his head up and looks at Sora’s outstretched pinkie. Looks at Sora with that hopeful smile on his face. “I need time to sort through this,” he says, but taps Sora’s finger with his own. “Alone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, sure. I can play keep-away,” Sora chirps. So cheerful. Didn’t he just watch Vanitas destroy everything in his own life for an untenable goal? And he doesn’t pity him, or hate him somehow. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...this is a lot of thinking and coming to terms and making promises and talking, that he has to do now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The last Unversed slowly fade into shadows and return to Vanitas. Sora stands up and brushes off his pants, which are kinda damp from the cave floor. He sticks his hand out for Vanitas to grab, but Vanitas waves it off. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh yeah, you have dark corridor stuff. Come get me after dinner, okay? I’ll save you some.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Vanitas sighs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora starts to head out, crouching because his head is a little too tall for the ceiling, but then stops. “I um, I am gonna have to tell Ven we’re soulmates though,” he says, sheepish. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas sighs a lot deeper and heavier. “If you have to.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>dyou know how many games sora is in?? do you know how much condensing there was?? did I realize halfway through writing that I don't know anything about the events of kh2??? maybe</p>
<p>venjamin time</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Ventus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Sora might run his mouth, a lot, but he keeps his promises.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a very weird few days after Vanitas comes back where they don’t change anything, and no one really asks him about it like he thought they would. And then, kind of a couple days after that where Sora makes a joke at him (not really about him, just at him), and he huffs a laugh and no one else who could hear got it, and then maybe it’s okay that not a lot changed. It just feels a touch more… or, less, rather, like he’s not included, on his side of things (because all the other wonder twins have been trying to rope him into stuff for ages, it’s just been him refusing). </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aside from actually talking to Sora, making periodic trips to the islands to untangle, they really just go back to what they were doing before. Except for Ventus, who kind of tries to go back to the half-conversations and tolerating-each-others’ presence thing they had before, and fails miserably. Every smaller conversation they have now has a different kind of tension to it Vanitas doesn’t care for. Ventus never pries, never oversteps first, but sometimes when he thinks Vanitas can’t see he gets this weird look on his face like </span>
  <em>
    <span>longing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And Vanitas is pretty sure Ventus doesn’t notice, so it’s double weird.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe you should hold off on asking,” he overhears Sora tell Ventus once, quietly. They’re in Sora’s room, “reading” their assigned chapters on his floor. “I dunno if either of you want to see each other’s history all over again yet. What if you got to know each other better first?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d know him </span>
  <em>
    <span>better</span>
  </em>
  <span> if we bonded… or if he talked to me again,” Ventus sighs. Vanitas scoffs, internally. Sora’s definition of “knowing each other” gets all messed up when it comes to them. “You’re right, though. ‘M just really curious. I don’t want to keep guessing at stuff.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mm-hmm. What’s ‘annealing’?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heating up metal. Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas continues down the hallway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So all that said, it happens on accident with Ventus.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas breaks his record of a solid nine days of not getting into a fight, verbal or physical, but he blames Ventus for this one, because even though Vanitas started the verbal part, Ventus hit him first. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t just </span>
  <em>
    <span>talk </span>
  </em>
  <span>about him like that!” Ventus hisses, his keyblade forgotten in favor of the lovely fistfight they’ve embroiled themselves in just outside the castle doors. Grass stains already litter their knees, thanks to the recent summer rain, and blood from Ventus’ nose makes a chaotic sort of pattern across them both. It smells like dirt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas whips around and scrapes Ventus’ bared shoulder against the castle wall. “What, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> can talk about </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> Master ‘like that’? Hypocritical, Ventus, I expected more self-awareness.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus presses himself against the wall, lashing out and kicking Vanitas away from him and lunging as soon as there’s enough space to knock him over. “I thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> of all people would be able to tell the difference,” he snarls, bearing down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Terra’s voice shouts at them from somewhere, and Vanitas grips Ventus’ wrist to unbalance him but just manages to move it jerkily up towards his collarbone instead of where it was pressing into his chest, and--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Ventus has a scraped palm, and Vanitas caught a keyblade to the jaw minutes before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Both of them get half a second of “...oh!” before they’re yanked into the past.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas finds himself on a nice little pathway, completely disoriented and frothing with hate. He’s not ready for this. So maybe he’d been putting it off for way too long, that doesn’t mean the universe had to step in and force it! He wants out! He and Ventus have gotten blood on each other a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot!</span>
  </em>
  <span> What makes it so different </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It occurs to him that Ventus’ blood has never made contact with his</span>
  <em>
    <span> skin. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He was wearing the suit. And any wound Ventus had made, it would usually string together and cover. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>... This is a stupid technicality, and they should have considered it before punching each other in the face. But if the universe didn’t want them to hit each other so bad, what with the worlds-destroying weapon and the soulbond and the heart breaking, it shouldn’t have made Ventus so punchable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So… where is he?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas scans around where he ended up, and the more he looks, the more uneasy he feels. A pathway between two buildings, flowers strung between windows and boxed up outside. Unlit lamps and fluttering decorations trail up the walls on either side. There’s a bridge in front of him, and it looks like a much bigger courtyard beyond that. The cobblestone beneath his feet feels like he’s walked on it before. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But something is</span>
  <em>
    <span> wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span> with it. When he’s not looking at the walls, or the lights, they blur out of focus and when he comes back to them there’s one more light, or a tree has moved, or the cobblestone is a different pattern than it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Ventus walks right through him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So does someone else, a girl with long black hair, but he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> her. He feels Ventus glitch through his body like a gust of wind carrying bone-jittering spikes of electricity along its path. Ventus doesn’t seem to notice. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I hav  ’t met any of them y t, so I dunno!” Ventus says, cheerfully. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What’s wrong with the memory?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m s    u will s    , y    wa        e ,” the girl smiles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is like what happened to Sora. Is it just too hard to retrieve? Can he just not see it? Is being technically your own soulmate too hard for it to handle when you were </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> and not </span>
  <em>
    <span>you two? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Vanitas reaches over to tap Ventus’ shoulder, to see if he can. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Numbness spikes up his arm, and Ventus just ducks under the girl’s affectionate hair-tousle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s one more memory it tries to show him of way-too-long-ago, and it’s so incomprehensibly fuzzy he can’t even tell where Ventus is. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas gets hit with a clear and solid wall of sharp, dry desert air and freezes, the feeling of </span>
  <em>
    <span>uneasy </span>
  </em>
  <span>only deepening. He’s not in the past anymore — more past than this, this is familiar, and if this is familiar then—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus is in a heap in front of him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There are tiny spots of blood in the skid mark where Ventus landed in the dust, and his hair is stained a violent red-rust color near his forehead. Vanitas can’t move — can’t see for certain where the injury is, but blood runs down his face, sticking on his eyelashes. A bruise on his elbow, old scratches on his forearms and new scuffs covering them, but nothing else. Ventus curls up in the dirt and breathes unevenly at Vanitas’ feet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas stares. For two seconds or an hour, he stares until awful, disgusting feelings swirl back up into his chest like disturbed pond scum. “Get up,” he whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus doesn’t even try to get up, he just continues to lie there. Like he doesn’t care. Or he doesn’t know, or—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Get </span>
  <em>
    <span>up!”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas snarls, and kicks him in the side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus flinches with a pitiful whimper, burying his head further into his arms. He doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>move. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“I said </span>
  <em>
    <span>up, </span>
  </em>
  <span>you pathetic—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ventus!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas barely restrains himself from </span>
  <em>
    <span>jumping</span>
  </em>
  <span> backward, but only just.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Master strides over to Ventus, who had started struggling to get his hands under him at the sound of his name. He looks immaculate as always, not a step out of place, keyblade tucked behind his back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stops. He pulls Ventus up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I see I have illustrated my point,” he says, standing back to attention. Ventus bows, wavering slightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your style of wielding, like any other, has weak points. One of which is the inability to perform an effective upward block. To compensate, you must become proficient at dodging and redirecting downward strikes. Do you understand me?” Xehanort says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, master.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good. Now come. We are done for today.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A Cura washes over Ventus’ body. He sighs in relief, and threads his fingers through his bloody hair, wincing at the slow healing the gash over his eyebrow is doing — not quite enough to fix it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he trots off after Xehanort like a dog. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas just stares. The fleeting notion that he was probably supposed to do something flickers just once in his chest, overtaken by other things entirely. Things like he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span> us, even before. Things like you don’t deserve this kind of lesson if you’re going to squander it, things like we tried over and over again and you couldn’t do the one simple thing he asked and </span>
  <em>
    <span>he treats you better than he treated me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Vanitas</span>
  </em>
  <span> he doesn’t need to waste a Cure on, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Vanitas</span>
  </em>
  <span> he doesn’t need to coddle because he’s not in a</span>
  <em>
    <span> human body, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he doesn’t need to teach he just needs to—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He feels all the ingredients for Unversed writhe beneath his skin with no way out. He feels them scrape at his nerves like needles. He feels them burn in his throat like bile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why did you show me this,” he whispers, fury shaking his voice. “Why did I need to see this? What did I </span>
  <em>
    <span>gain?!”</span>
  </em>
  <span> His pitch rises, voice drawing into a shout. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The desert just stands like it always does.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas doesn’t help him as he struggles to cast Dark Firaga, and eventually burns the pad of his thumb trying to force it. His anger still seethes under his skin, slowly unspooling from the tight ball in his chest and fading at his fingertips. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Slowly. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Maybe because it realizes it doesn’t have an Unversed to create.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hopes Ventus is having a good time watching this all over again as well. He hopes he’s making Ventus re-live a bunch of awful stuff.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...He doesn't actually hope that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas watches Ventus run through the same kata six times, and trip over his feet the same way every single time. Finally, Ventus makes a frustrated “AaaaaAAAaagh!” and stomps his foot in the dust. Vanitas can’t help but flick him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus yelps, and spins his keyblade in a wide arc, looking around frantically when it hits nothing. Amused, Vanitas lets the keyblade pass through him a few more times before flicking him again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time, he stops, and drops his stance. “Hey… you’re not… you’re not the other one, are you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The “other one”. Well, he’s given up his stubborn cover already anyways. Vanitas sticks his finger into Ventus’ cheek. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He slaps at it, dawning recognition replaced by a small scowl. Closer to a pout. “Oh. Leave me alone, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have been,” Vanitas snorts. “And look how well that’s working out.” He watches Ventus back away, and then try the kata again, and fail. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, for heaven’s sake. They can both do this in their sleep. He goes and taps Ventus’ shoulder again, and gets swatted at like a mosquito. Ventus turns to where he thinks Vanitas is and frowns harder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not very nice</span>
  <em>
    <span>, </span>
  </em>
  <span>you know? Our other soulmate is nice, even though they’re not supposed to be here,” he says. “They don’t stand there and watch me. Or </span>
  <em>
    <span>kick </span>
  </em>
  <span>me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ah, the consequences of his actions. Vanitas considers just leaving him to screw up the kata until the Master fixes it for him, but on the second (...eighth?) stumble, Vanitas sticks his foot out and nudges Ventus to the left. “What?!” Ventus says, exasperated. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just step to the left when you come out of the turn, not the right,” Vanitas explains, equally exasperated. He really wishes Ventus could hear him. He waits until right when he messes up, and nudges him again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Luckily they weren’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> dense when they were younger. “...Are you trying to help?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Vanitas pushes him back into starting stance. Ventus looks more uncomfortably tentative now than mad. “Okay, I guess. How do I fix it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes a few tries, and Vanitas starts getting to the end of his very thin rope of patience by the end, but he guides Ventus through the forms perfectly, and watches him complete the rest of the kata almost like he was teaching him to ride a bicycle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus bounces on the balls of his feet, letting off a little celebratory whoop and then reigning it back in. He turns to Vanitas. “Um, thank you!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Uh-huh,” Vanitas says, and backs off. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas watches himself shudder into existence. The chaos of seconds before is mostly forgotten in the suffocating silence that follows. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s not sure, exactly, if Ventus can feel his hand. But Sora’s clasped it in his own, protective and gentle over Ventus’ heart. He’s barely breathing, neither of them are — but the four or five minutes it takes Xehanort to decide what his plan is, the four or five minutes filled by silence as Vanitas stands there, blank and waiting for orders, and Ventus lies on the ground bleeding sluggishly from unhealed wounds and staring at nothing with half-lidded eyes, he can hear the breaths he takes fill his head like he’s in a tiny echo chamber.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hardly notices when Sora’s hand slips away from his own, and Ventus disappears from under his touch. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The numbness he’s fallen into fades by the time he gets to the second memory where Ventus is just sleeping, or in an odd wakeful sleep where he’s “awake”, but unresponsive. The mild irritation and other Ventus-associated feelings return a few later. Vanitas perches on his bed frame over his head, idly kicking his feet as Aqua ruffles his hair and smiles, gently. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you need anything, we’re downstairs,” she says, and picks up the half-empty plate Ventus didn’t finish and walks out, closing the door softly. Vanitas scoffs. She</span>
  <em>
    <span> always</span>
  </em>
  <span> says things like that, like “good morning” and “do you like strawberries?” and “we’re training outside today, so we won’t be inside for a little while”, like Ventus is a person yet. He can go through the motions, but there’s no way he can process liking things or the concept of a different room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re really boring now, you know?” Vanitas says. He flips himself upside down against the wall. It’s a difficult position to stay in without falling backwards onto Ventus’ head. Ventus says, of course, nothing, just lays in bed without even the covers on. It’s warm out, so it’s valid, but it makes him look even</span>
  <em>
    <span> more</span>
  </em>
  <span> like a weird doll.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your heart is still working in there, right?” Vanitas hops down from his perch, sitting on the bed next to Ventus instead. He puts his hand over his heart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just a little bit of the sleep leaves his eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...hello?” Ventus rasps. His voice sounds like he’s never used it, thin and reedy and almost a whisper it’s so quiet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas stares, an incredulous smirk of an expression pulling at his lips. “So you can respond to me, but not Master Aqua? I’m not even here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus moves slowly, in hesitant bursts one little bit at a time. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, his expressions seem to be the last to catch up, if they move at all. He puts his hand over Vanitas’ and looks at nothing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, hi.” He rubs</span>
  <em>
    <span> hello</span>
  </em>
  <span> into Ventus’ hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus blinks. His eyes flicker to his hands, and then unfocus, like that millisecond was too long to concentrate. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“... I’m here,” Ventus whispers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas… Vanitas frowns. That’s not funny or annoying anymore, he feels wrong. Sora must have taught Ventus their signals. Is that what he remembers? ...Is that all he remembers for sure? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas lets go. Ventus loses his tether, and goes silent. He falls asleep again after a few minutes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wake up soon,” Vanitas mutters. He‘s decided, even though he used to think he’d prefer it, he doesn’t like empty doll Ventus very much.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>——</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Ventus is up a tree, perched on a thin branch near a castle window and wobbling, as if to say “not so boring anymore, haha!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ven, get </span>
  <em>
    <span>down!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Aqua shouts from the ground. Ventus just looks at her and grins. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is going to fall straight off that thing. Vanitas appraises the tree quickly: it’s sturdy enough </span>
  <em>
    <span>to</span>
  </em>
  <span> climb, but Ventus went down a really unsteady branch. He scampers up the tree trunk, balancing between two branches that are stronger than the ones Ventus has gotten himself onto, and pulls at his arm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He forgot that Ventus doesn’t remember the fact that he’s met him before, and Ventus goes “whoa!” in shock and falls over, swinging off the branch at the bottom like a koala. Aqua makes a strangled noise from below them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus flips his head upside down. “Sorry!” He calls. He wriggles his way back up on top of the branch, and angles himself to kind of… stick his head where Vanitas pulled at him. His hair bonks against Vanitas’ still-outstretched hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lights up — which is less than Vanitas is used to it meaning on his face, but after a continuous stream of blank or frowning expressions, the soft smile that pulls at his eyes is… welcome. If bright. And he starts wiggling down the branch to follow Vanitas. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They play tag, sort of, is the way Vanitas gets him to follow, all the way across the tree and into an open windowsill. Ventus barrels through and rolls onto the bed right next to the window — one of the unused rooms, Vanitas guesses — and looks around, tentatively reaching his hand out to find him. Vanitas sets his hand on his shoulder instead. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello!” Ventus chirps. His voice is still a little raspy, still just a touch sleepy, but he sounds more familiar now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...Hello again,” Vanitas says, and taps </span>
  <em>
    <span>hello.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus looks like he wants to say something for a few seconds, and then doesn’t. Instead, he clumsily wraps his fingers around his wristband and tugs it off, displaying his wrist the wrong way before flipping around and showing it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s the opposite wrist from Vanitas, but his soulmarks are there, a small crown and a heart, outlined but half-filled with grey. He takes a breath, but seems to forget he was going to talk and just points at the heart. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Against my better judgement,” Vanitas says, and taps it in confirmation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus considers something for a second -- introductions and hellos and such are the easiest parts of talking, but he’s never properly introduced himself to someone he couldn’t see or hear. That makes things a little shaky. He knows the words, though, so it should be polite to say them, even if he doesn’t get the correct reply. “N-Nice to… meet you,” he says. “I’m Ventus. Call me Ven.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Charmed,” Vanitas replies.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus has a head that goes faster than his mouth can keep up with, especially at first. Vanitas thinks he must have taken all the critical thinking when they split. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aha</span>
  <em>
    <span>ha!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Terra laughs in triumph — Ventus whirls around to see what the fuss is about and nearly jumps out of his skin in excitement. Vanitas is </span>
  <em>
    <span>pretty</span>
  </em>
  <span> sure it was alarm at first, though, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>sure alarmed that Terra is on fire. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Terra, you did it!” Aqua calls, abandoning her own practice to clap happily. Terra preens under the attention for a second, twirling his keyblade and making exaggerated muscle man poses. Master Eraqus seems displeased in a… in a smiling sort of way, at Terra’s antics, but lets him go, and compliments him on a successful command style (Vanitas doesn’t quite get that).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus dashes towards him. “No,” Vanitas mutters, yanking him back by the collar, because Terra is still definitely on fire. Instead, Ventus turns to Aqua with stars in his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I -- Terra, he -- can, can I? H-he’s on, he did -- oh wow,” Ventus stutters, waving his hands around -- he wants to say something, but there are too many somethings he’s trying to say at once, and they’re all getting lost on the way out. He seems frustrated, but too excited to be really mad about it. Aqua grins, and Vanitas rolls his eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“One at a time,” Vanitas mouths amusedly, while Aqua actually tells him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At that point, Terra stops being on fire, and Vanitas wonders if he could learn command styles, if he got one of them to tell him how they worked. Maybe he </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> ask Ventus, what with the rapid-fire pat he gives Vanitas’ arm before dashing off to bounce around Terra like popcorn.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus gets better, stops forgetting his way to the bedroom and dropping his keyblade and getting too lost in his head to come back without help. Vanitas lets himself feel some kind of good about it, despite the undertone of jealousy he always carries with him whenever he remembers what </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> doing on the other side of the universe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus doesn’t seem to be one to give nicknames, oddly enough. Just the symbols are enough for him. The way he says them is different, though, like the words mean something. He supposes they might, since they’re specifically associated with him and Sora, and not anything else first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He sometimes says “my heart” and “my crown” — makes Vanitas’ actual heart do funny things.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas is less of a protector for Ven -- who has such a strong sense of justice already, Master Eraqus unabetting -- and more of a good shove. Come back, just do it already, yes it’s okay to go this way. Though, for all their combined insecurity, apparently splitting did nothing to diminish either of their horrible decision-making.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>… none of them have that trait, Vanitas thinks, and snorts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wish I knew who you were,” Ventus says, one of these days.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas sighs, and allows himself to fall backwards onto the roof Ventus had climbed onto to watch the stars. He doesn’t wish that, and he really won’t like the answer when he gets it, but Vanitas can’t do much short of telling him </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and just lays there next to him instead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It would be nice. It’s always been… nice, having you guys. I just… something feels like it’s missing,” Ventus murmurs. “Don’t get me wrong! I love Terra and Aqua and Master Eraqus. More than anything. But…” he trails off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think something’s wrong with me?” he says, instead of the sentence Vanitas expects him to continue. Vanitas turns to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus thinks for a long moment. “Just because… you’re from the future, so maybe you know more than I do? Maybe. Terra said I was all better now, but I’m not. I still can’t remember things, or -- and they still give me those looks, sometimes, when I do something wrong. They don’t think I see it. It happened today, Aqua asked me about this,” he gestures to the scar over his eyebrow, “and asked how I got it, and she asked me about other stuff too, and asked if I was okay an’ I don’t know what that means when she says it. I’m always okay. I’m upset, but I can’t be mad like they can, or -- or sad, or.”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>Ventus takes a breath. “I think Master Eraqus likes it, that I can’t. So it’s probably fine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas isn’t sure what to tell him, to that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to be someone different. But I do feel like something’s missing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh. Yes, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Vanitas taps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Vanitas taps again, more forcefully. Yes, you’re missing someone, you’re missing </span>
  <em>
    <span>me.</span>
  </em>
  <span> And you never even told me, you don’t even know. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, hello, yes.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He doesn’t want to rehash these words with Ventus later, and momentarily curses the universe for putting an invisible-inaudible constraint on the time-travelling heart ghost thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know I haven’t met either of you yet,” Ventus sighs. Okay, </span>
  <em>
    <span>close,</span>
  </em>
  <span> but not quite. “But you think that’ll help?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes.</span>
  </em>
  <span> There are a lot of words that do not fit into a single </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay then,” Ventus says. He turns to face him, his eyes almost close enough to looking at him he could pretend he is. They catch the stars in little faded splashes of glitter, starlight playing off the edges of his hair. “I can’t wait to see you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas’ lips part, just a touch. Ventus would </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> say that to him, to his face, like that. But here he is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s nice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas, despite knowing very well that he cannot touch himself in one of these memories, has the unrestrainable urge to bop himself on the head. This might be a recurring practice. Not that he really regrets anything leading up to their ends, but… the urge to bop is still there. There is a notable lack of satisfying </span>
  <em>
    <span>tonk.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus dashes out the door to find Terra without much prompting at all, but hesitates when Terra takes off. He doesn’t have a whole lot of time to get lost in decision-making, portals are not indefinite until closed, and if he doesn’t get through there who knows the next easiest way out -- Vanitas pushes on his back, and Ventus makes up his mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He finds that he can straight-up sit on the edge of Ventus’ glider, which is </span>
  <em>
    <span>hilarious,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and he waves and laughs at Master Aqua’s retreating face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas finds himself in kind of a drafty-ish castle room, no Ventus. He looks around, up, around the corner -- </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Down.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ventus.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas drops into a squat and watches a teeny-tiny Ventus scamper across the ground, running his hand through his hair. He had forgotten this, almost completely. “You,” Vanitas says, low and disbelieving, “are microscopic.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would have been so easy to just </span>
  <em>
    <span>step</span>
  </em>
  <span> on him, he might’ve if he weren’t careful. He puts his hand like a little cage around Ventus, who runs straight into his finger. “Whoa!” Vanitas, easily amused by this, releases the Ventus cage and cups him in his palm instead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus recoils like he’s in cold water. “That feels really weird! Are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>big?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Why d’you get to stay big?!” He pushes past Vanitas’ hand and runs straight into his other one. He huffs, and crosses his little arms. “If you’re gonna be here, help me. I need to find a button.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Never before, not even when he said it first, has Vanitas thought the name Venty-wenty fit him so well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is a recurring practice, actually, and Vanitas restrains himself from shoving… uh, himself, again, away from Ventus. Remarkably stupid and impulsive idea aside, his plan to just destroy Ventus and take his body consequences-be-darned wouldn’t have worked anyways.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Or maybe it would have, if he was just a touch less homicidal. Ventus is certainly puffed up enough at his mere presence to keep attacking and coming back, even though he’s not strong enough yet, and even when he gets knocked to the ground so fast he flips over his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” Vanitas grumbles, “I didn’t even hit you that hard! Dodge!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tags Ventus away from his more lethal attacks, and ends up kind of confusing him or making him second-guess himself. Fair, seeing as this isn’t really a thing they do, but he still winces when Ventus nearly gets blasted to oblivion and then rescued by </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mickey.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Though seeing Ventus’ renewed stubborn determination to fight deepen every time they touch is fun. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus is pouting (like really actually) on the ground in the corner of a large square, twirling his toy keyblade. Vanitas flops down beside him. He’s missed whatever made Ven so upset, but that doesn’t stop him from getting his shoulder awkwardly leaned on in a big huff. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“C’mon, sadsack. When are we, in the middle of everything? Y’lost Terra again?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus doesn’t explain, he just leans. He’s obviously thinking a bit too much, mindlessly spinning the glorified stick Terra gave him. Where does he keep that thing, anyways?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He fumbles it, and there’s an odd moment where the handle goes through Vanitas’ knee (he’s never going to get used to the intangibility thing). And then it gets picked up… by… Tiny Axel? Or Lea or whoever. He really throws out both names wantonly, no preference except for how a few people say it. Ven scowls slightly at someone else flipping his practice keyblade around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You still play with toy swords? That’s cute,” Small Axel says, his smirk less mocking than it is playful. Ventus is not in the mood, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Now this right here -- tadaaa! Whaddya think?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not a whole lot,” Ventus says, while Vanitas snorts at the very flimsy plastic frisbees he’s painted on top of with spray fire decals. He displays them like he holds his chakrams, only a little less competently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas gets up, appraises Small Axel (Lea, is what he tells Ventus to call him) -- he’s about as much of a beanpole as he is now, just, y’know. Smaller. Scrappier. Once he hears Lea challenge Ventus, though, he trots back. “Hey, don’t turn him down. It’ll make you feel better, c’mon,” he says, and tugs on his wrist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It brings him great joy to see just how thoroughly Ventus beats Lea without really hurting him. He wonders if he could do the same now, even. It would be very, very funny.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>incredibly</span>
  </em>
  <span> grateful he doesn’t have to revisit Disney Town. It would have driven him nuts to try to do his job and also be there at the same time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He much prefers helping Ventus and a little blue alien thing escape from a big spaceship, smashing stuff as they do. Like </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> smashing stuff, there’s an explosion that they both cause that makes them grin at each other wildly, and it’s crazy infectious. The creature gives Ven a high five as they crawl into a much smaller personal ship, and Vanitas really wants to know what their deal is and also if they could do that again but while he’s actually there?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora used to call to him more to just show him something, but Ven does it once or twice. He’s floating around a few feet off the ground, trailing sparkles and giggling. Vanitas pushes his foot to see if he can move him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It does, slightly — but he leans into it. “Oh! Good! Hey, watch this!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus casts Aero, just a gentle one, and goes spinning like a top. His laughing is almost a cackle by now, and Vanitas rolls his eyes. “Is that it? That’s all you wanted me for?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus slows down, dizzy. “We — aha, if I make it back here, we’re doing this again.” He slowly drifts upside-down, having lost fine control over the direction of his pixie-dust hover. Vanitas groans — it’s bad enough that he’s weak to Graviga, he doesn’t want to spin any more than he </span>
  <em>
    <span>has</span>
  </em>
  <span> to. The sparkles might make it worse, actually. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pushes on Ventus’ shoe again, and makes a note to not remind him of this. And then makes a supplementary note to learn Gravity spells.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>—-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on,” Vanitas mutters, cursing the universe yet again for not letting him use magic in a memory and shifting his hands around Ventus’ armor in some attempt at transferring body heat, “C’mon, up. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Come on.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus is </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that’s the least he can say, but ice and metal, no matter what kind of heart-bonded metal it is, do not mix. He’s shivering just about as much as he can, breathing in short little gasps behind armor frozen tight to his chest. Vanitas winces as he hears Aqua’s keyblade make a harsh </span>
  <em>
    <span>sthwack!</span>
  </em>
  <span> against Braig’s shoulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They stop fighting, but Ventus keeps trying to move, to get to Aqua’s side. He only stops when -- </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus’ eyes go wide. “Aqua!” he yells, and much more metallic </span>
  <em>
    <span>ckhrkunshk!</span>
  </em>
  <span> echoes past Vanitas’ ears. He doesn’t remember it sounding... quite so ugly. Ventus stares, in shock, and then jerks so violently part of the metal armor cracks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something is happening to him, at least, different from before, it’s familiar. He can feel it. He can</span>
  <em>
    <span> feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> it. That’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>darkness</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Anger and hate and horror, all a chimera-miasm of darkness. That’s what it is, what it’s trying to be, it’ll never really take hold so long as Ventus is what he is, but Vanitas can work with that. He grabs ahold of it and swears against the universe to let him help and </span>
  <em>
    <span>pulls,</span>
  </em>
  <span> drawing it closer and denser and burning at the edges, and Ventus finds his legs and shoves his way out from under him and screams in a way he’s never heard him do again, aside from right now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gets to hold Ven’s hand as he disappears. He gets to hand his heart off to Sora.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sleeping again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora gets this from you, Vanitas thinks, perched on the arm of Ventus’ throne exactly like he always did back in the castle when it wasn’t so much like… this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He brushes his hands against Ventus’, softly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hel-lo. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I’m looking for you. I’m coming for you.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders if that would be a comfort, if Ventus knew who he was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He underestimated how fast it was, from the time Ventus woke up to the time they clashed again. As it is, Ventus looks like he’s barely slept, pacing around the tower yard at midnight and shaking out his sore muscles. He’s been in a sort of stasis for so long, he doesn’t ever mess up the moves he’s performing, but he tires </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> easily. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus launches himself at the makeshift targets he’s set up again, whirling through them at top speed, exactly the same as when Vanitas saw him last. He finishes the set by snapping one of the plywood planks in half with a </span>
  <em>
    <span>crack!</span>
  </em>
  <span> and stumbling to the side, breathing heavily. He does it again, and again, and makes it halfway through another round before one of his legs freezes up and he falls to the ground. Ventus screws up his face in concentration and hisses something under his breath -- casts Cure, wobbles to his feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright,” Vanitas mutters, “that’s enough.” He understands determination, and he understands pushing himself way past the acceptable limit, but watching someone else do it is kind of sad. And Ventus </span>
  <em>
    <span>needs</span>
  </em>
  <span> rest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He grabs Ventus by the arm before he can start another round, and Ventus startles and rips his arm out of his hand. And then blinks, and processes, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>grabs</span>
  </em>
  <span> at him, catching him by his own arm. “Oh, you’re still here,” Ventus breathes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry, I -- “ Ventus bows over his knees, suddenly hit with the drop in adrenaline Vanitas’ interruption had caused. “You’re -- I know. Sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was easier than he thought. Vanitas tugs his arm forwards, back towards the tower -- but Ventus shakes his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hafta get Terra back,” he pants. “So. Sorry. Gimme a few more m… minutes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is counterintuitive,” Vanitas argues, and pulls him more insistently towards the tower. Ventus shakes his head again, digging his feet into the ground stubbornly. Vanitas circles him and starts pushing on his back, like it’ll be more effective. “Ven. Go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Ventus mutters, like he can hear him. “I don’t. Can’t go to bed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re being a child.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop </span>
  <em>
    <span>pushing</span>
  </em>
  <span> me,” he says, suddenly slapping at Vanitas. “Not -- not yet, okay?” He swipes at his eyes, too, dangerously wobbly. “‘Few more.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ven?” someone calls. Vanitas perks up -- actual, physical Sora, not soulmate Sora, pads out onto the grass in pajamas and no socks and a blanket that makes him look like a shifty blob of fuzz from the shoulders down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe Sora will make him go to sleep. Vanitas pushes him one more time, and that seems to do it. Ventus walks gingerly over to meet him, pushing Sora’s bangs out of his eyes and getting his hand caught in a hold in the process. He very inconspicuously starts walking Ventus back inside. Vanitas rolls his eyes, with something close to fondness, but closer to exasperation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus slowly picks his way closer to Sora and the bundle of dark miasm that is Vanitas’ spiderweb-cracked heart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sora,” Ventus says carefully. “That’s not what he wanted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can help. Promise.”</span>
  <span></span>
    <br/>
  
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <span>“No, I -- you shouldn’t… make him come with us. He wanted to--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He wanted to die?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus goes quiet. Vanitas can almost hear the gears whirring in his head, something like yes he did, so did I, I didn’t want to tell him he wasn’t allowed to end it. Something like that, at least. He can see the pathways his head takes him on through his expression.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora’s holding Vanitas’ heart like it’s the most fragile thing in the world. They’re watching each other, not quite sure what to do about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas gently touches the back of Ven’s neck. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You too. Come on.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“At least let me hold him,” Ventus rasps. Sora obediently hands him over, and Ventus pulls Vanitas into his heart with a reverence he reserves for his real friends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lab again. A fight. A second fight, and a kitchen at 3 am, and an ultimate-keyblade-frisbee-golf mishap, and the top of a mountain far away from the tower or even anyone remotely familiar, and --</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>and grass and bloodstains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ventus blinks at him, stupidly. “...Ah,” he says, and then scrambles back a few steps and collapses, hunched over with his hand covering his mouth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas doesn’t… actually feel that great either! The events of the past few (seconds, days) all kind of crash in on him at once, and the smell of blood is no longer welcome in his nose.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Terra has stopped running, confusion slowing him down, so by the time he reaches them, he doesn’t have anything to say except “...Are you okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Neither of them really hear him. Vanitas can’t tear his eyes away from Ven, as he uncurls himself and looks (really, really looks, how terrifying) at Vanitas. “You --” he starts, unable to really control the words coming out of his mouth. “You had a different memory. Than me, from before. You -- h-he,” he pauses, shoving those feelings down with a shudder. “The Unversed. Is that --”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas jerks into motion. “No. Nope! Come here,” he snaps, and drags Ven into a dark corridor before Terra can hear or do anything else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s managed to aim himself directly into the cave on Destiny Islands, by now, but he does aim a little off and bonk both of their heads on the ceiling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ven tumbles onto the ground, even more disoriented than before. “The -- Vanitas! Wait, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up. Shut up, stop talking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas sits on the ground, studying his knees and trying to remember how this went before, exactly, and how to make it different. And how not to make as many Unversed. He left a few for Terra to be distracted with, but he doesn’t want to make more in front of Ventus. Who, for his part, did shut up and is just laying on the floor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lays on the floor for a while. Then kind of props himself up on his elbows, and then scoots over to sit next to Vanitas.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He gently leans his head on Vanitas’ shoulder, asking for permission with his caution. Vanitas could buck him off if he wanted to, but he finds he doesn’t feel like it. “Hello,” Ven says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(nothing but the gentle sound of waves.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sora probably wants to know right now immediately, Ven thinks. Vanitas probably wants to know a lot of things too. They can talk later. Talking isn’t really something Ven and Vanitas </span>
  <em>
    <span>do,</span>
  </em>
  <span> they’re just not good at it. But they are good at listening, and feeling, and other such nonsense. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So… Starlight, huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Vanitas hits him. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ta-daaa! will there be an epilogue, no, I just wanted to write them seeing each others' lives, but you are free to imagine Sora excited as all getout that they finally bonded (even if it was an accident)</p>
<p>as a fun endnote -- Vanitas is always imparting direction, calm, and that feeling of being spurred on by your rival. Sora is almost always comfort, encouragement, and great at lightening a bad mood. Ventus pushes them towards justice, hope, and is almost always there to do something silly and impulsive. </p>
<p>hmu @skipperkine on twitter :) i talk a whole lot about like 300 other aus I have</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>